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Comment by sil3ntmac | Hacker News Reader

Only problem I have with AppStore is that it requires my password for free downloads. Paid download? Hell yes, require my password if I haven't typed it in for 15 minutes.

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I have kids. I'm happy they _always_ ask for a password... Free apps can be malicious e.g giving away location to parties unknown. But still you're right - this could be an option users can decide.

This is part of a deeper problem with most mobile OSes. I might give my phone to somebody so they can make a quick call or look something up online. However, I don't really want them being able to dig through my history or be automatically logged into my email etc.

If I had a child I'd want to be able to let them use my phone but only in a special mode that allowed access to a limited number of whitelisted websites & apps.

Schneier today:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/07/all-or-nothing... http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/soups/2012/proceedings/a2_Hayashi.pdf

But: yes.

I'd like my phone to offer a few different "shells" of access:

- Emergency calls.

- "Share" or "play" mode. Selected photos or apps.

- "Mobile" -- ready access to stuff I need, but not distractions (the "Car Panel" on some Android phones is somewhat like this, but I'd appreciate if it didn't encourage use while driving).

- "Full" complete and potentially immersive access.

There are currently a few projects ongoing with enabling VMs on smartphones. The way it was thought is that you would put your corporate stuff on a protected VM that would have no external app install, and the rest (games, social networks...) would be on the "fun" VM. That way, the company data would be better protected.

This isn't a popular sentiment but the way I solve this is not to let anyone borrow or touch my devices.

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